India, Maldives hold third core group meeting on troop withdrawal

Military teams have been replaced by civilian technical experts.

male:

India and the Maldives on Sunday reviewed the continued deployment of Indian civilian technicians to enable continued operations of Indian aviation platforms in the island nation.

The deliberations between the two sides at the third high-level caucus meeting in Male focused on the issue of India’s troop withdrawal from the island.

India said on Friday its first military personnel operating advanced light helicopters in the Maldives have returned from the country.

Military teams have been replaced by civilian technical experts.

Maldives President Mohamed Muizul has set a March 10 deadline for the withdrawal of the first batch of Indian military personnel from the Maldives.

“During the meeting, both sides reviewed the dispatch of Indian technical personnel to ensure that Indian aviation platforms can continue to operate to provide humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of Maldives,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

The statement said the two sides continued to discuss a wide range of issues related to bilateral cooperation.

“This includes, inter alia, accelerating the implementation of ongoing development cooperation projects through regular convening of joint monitoring mechanisms, efforts to promote bilateral trade and investment, and strengthening people-to-people ties through capacity-building and travel,” the report said.

Both sides agreed that the next high-level caucus meeting would be held in New Delhi at a mutually convenient time.

After the second meeting of the high-level core group established to resolve the issue of Indian troop withdrawal, the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that India will withdraw all military personnel in two phases by May 10.

The second meeting of the core group was held in Delhi on February 2.

In December last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maldivian President Moezu met during the COP28 summit in Dubai, and the two sides decided to establish a core group.

Relations between India and the Maldives have been somewhat strained since Muizou came to power in November.

Muizu is widely seen as a pro-China leader and insisted after taking office that he would keep his election promise to expel Indian military personnel from his country.

Muizou, 45, defeated India-friendly incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in a presidential runoff last September.

The Maldives is one of India’s major maritime neighbors in the Indian Ocean region and overall bilateral relations, including in the defense and security areas, were on the rise under the previous government in Male.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)